ks for your fine letter. It is like this, John: I hope to get
off next week, but I don't seem to be able to get the
accommodations I want on either one of the steamers that I should
like to travel on, and that sail next week. I need a little special
accommodation on account of my leg, which still refuses to answer
my call and requires the big stick.

_To Alfred Sutro, in January, 1913, on the current taste in plays:_

These American plays with thieves, burglars, detectives, and
pistols seem to be the real things over here just now. None of them
has failed.

_Memorandum for his office-boy, Peter, for a week's supply of his
favorite drinks:_

Get me plenty of orange-juice, lemon soda, ginger ale,
sarsaparilla, buttermilk.

_To Alfred Sutro, 1913:_

Haddon Chambers sails to-day. You may see him before you see this.
He leaves behind him what I think will give him many happy returns
(box-office) of the season, as Miss Barrymore is doing so well with
his "Tante."

_To W. Lestocq, concerning one of his leading London actresses:_

Miss Titheridge is all right, as I wrote Morton, if her emotions
can be kept down, and if she can try to make the audience act more,
and act less herself.

_To Michael Morton regarding an actress:_

She needs to be told that real acting is not to act, but to make
the audience feel, and not feel so much herself.

_To the editor of a popular monthly magazine upon its first birthday:_

I understand that your September issue will be made to mark ----'s
first birthday. Judging from your paper your birthday plans miss
the issue; because---- becomes a year younger every September. I do
_not_ congratulate you even upon this fact; because you cannot help
it. I do _not_ congratulate your readers because they get your
paper so very cheap. I _do_ congratulate myself, however, for
calling attention to these wonderful facts.

_To W. Lestocq, referring to a statement made by R. C. Carton, the
dramatist:_

I don't quite understand what he means by "holding up" the play.
Over here it is a desperate expression--one that means pistols and
murder, and all that. I presume it means something different in
London, where Carton lives.

_To Mrs. C. C. Cushing, the playwright, declining an invitation:_

It is impossible to come and see you because I haven'